Jay comes to the same conclusion: All Pistol Rounds Suck.
It’s like that joke:
A woman sees a Texas Ranger with a gun on his hip. She asks him: “Sir, are you expecting trouble?” The Ranger replies, “Ma’am, if I was expecting trouble, I would have brought a rifle.”
The utility of handguns is their portability and concealability.
Jay mentioned an interesting data point:
Don’t rely on expansion from JHP. There were several cases where a suspect had been shot 5+ times with JHP ammunition, and only a handful of the shots actually expanded.
I can’t help but wonder why.
Jay, if you’re reading this, did your research offer up any explanations?
And then, it makes me wonder if ammo like Hornady’s Critical Defense would in fact fare better. Their marketing says so, but ballistics gel is different from flesh and bone.
Stuff From Hsoi 
I am at work (stupid Walmart) but I will reply as soon as I get home.
I’ve been watching Trauma:Real life in the ER and have come to a similar conclusion. People think if you get shot you are going to die. So not true. They show people being shot up to 6 times, and those weren’t the worst cases. That woman recovered fine. Caliber didn’t seem to matter either.
They didn’t talk caliber much and I didn’t see any cases that indicated a rifle was used.
If you make it to the ER, you are probably going to live with a gun shot wound. One guy had a bullet travel through his head and brain and survived, though he had brain damage.
One caliber mention. A guy was shot through a door with a 357. Hit him in the right side, and the doctor was able to pull it out with his fingers, it had so low a penetration.
At one point a doctor commented he’d had 5 suicide attempts, in one shift, 3 of which were self inflicted gun shot wounds. How can you fail at that?
Well, that’s part of it tho… television and movies. They think when someone gets shot with a spitwad they should get a hole in them the size of a Mack truck, they get blown off their feet back through a plate-glass window, and die from it.
But the above is truly why people don’t die from gunshot wounds: our medical and trauma care is so amazing these days. Chances are if you’re able to get to the ER, you will survive.
But it’s also testimony to how much handgun calibers suck. They just poke small holes and eventually you bleed out. So again, don’t give up, don’t think it’s the end… fight, get to the ER, and chances are you’ll be OK.
Home from work, just ate supper, so on to the commenting!
Here are a couple examples. Mind you, these are only a rough sample of the cases I’ve read, but it’ll help you get an idea of why JHPs don’t always expand.
One case happened in a small town in Montana at a biker bar. The cops were called for some reason, they showed up, and a drunk biker thought they were after him. So, he opened fire on the cops, who then shot the biker a total of 8 times with “JHP .40 S&W ammunition” (all the report said). Only 3 of the 8 JHP expanded. 5 of the 8 had penetrated through his thick leather vest. Since there was leather in the bullet nose, the nose was unable to open upon impact. The other 3 rounds penetrated through his undershirt, and opened as designed.
Another case happened in Florida. A deputy sheriff had stopped a suspect. When the deputy got out of his cruiser, the suspect opened his door and opened fire on the deputy. The deputy sought cover behind his car door, and returned fire. The deputy fired 3 rounds (Ranger SXT .45), of which only 2 opened. In that case, the second round failed to open because it penetrated the sternum. The bone of the sternum forced the round to stay closed, keeping it from opening.
The last case happened in Alabama. A cop fired his back up weapon (Glock 30) at a suspect who was ~32 yards away. Because of the short barrel of the Glock, there wasn’t enough velocity to cause the JHP to open. It penetrated (just), but didn’t open.
Something else the data pointed to as well, and part of the reason why I didn’t fully rely upon ballistic gel testing, is ballistic gel is “too perfect” in my opinion. Like you said, the body is made up of flesh, bone, nerve endings, blood vessels, and arteries, not just muscle tissue.
Plus, muscle tissue is different from person to person. Someone who works out a lot is going to have thick, lean muscle, whereas someone who sits on their butt all day isn’t. Thick, lean muscle is harder for a bullet to penetrate and expand. The clothing a person wears, like say a denim jacket, a leather vest, a thick winter coat, or a tightly knitted cotton shirt, also affects the reliability of expansion. You also have bones, which does not-so wonderful things to JHPs. Bones can absorb quite a bit of energy before they break or crack.
JHPs need energy to expand. Thats one of the reasons why JHPs tend to be smaller in bullet size. One of the most common JHP bullet weights for .45 auto is 185 grn, whereas most FMJ .45 is 230 grn. It’s a light, fast bullet which can penetrate hard and help increases expansion. Without that energy, it won’t expand.
However, you still have other factors, such as a bad round. Only part of the powder burned, so it didn’t get all the energy it needed. The bullet wasn’t manufactured correctly.
The FBI’s “Handgun Wounding Factors” says “Handgun bullets expand in the human target only 60-70% of the time at best”. Honestly, with the advances in JHP technology, bullet design, and the cases I’ve studied, I’d increase it to 70-80% of the time. I mean, JHPs are rather reliable, but they aren’t 100% reliable yet.
If a JHP bullet doesn’t expand, it essentially becomes an expensive FMJ round, so all in’t lost. That is why I placed such emphasis on shot placement. If your JHP doesn’t expand, but still hits the spinal cord, your target is going down no matter what. FMJ or JHP, a head shot or spinal cord hit is still instant incapacitaion and/or death.
The Hornady Critical Defense does look like an excellent round, however, only time can tell. Remember, if it doesn’t expand, it’ll make an excellent FMJ round! 😉
OK, that’s what I figured… the noses got clogged and the bullets became balls.
So like you said, penetration is key, placement is key.
The thing about Critical Defense tho is that it’s supposed to always expand. It fills that nose cavity with their special compound that should prevent the clogging and also helps to make expansion happen. Now, I do believe the downside is it doesn’t work well for LEO application, e.g. barrier penetration, but it’s not designed for that — it’s made for civilian self-defense, which has a lower chance of needing to penetrate barriers. But it’s why I say that I think the round is nifty, but needs a lot more data.
Excellent Jay! You also drew the very same conclusions that we cam to in an M&M study of gunshot wounds at U of Co. Med School that involved patients that we (Paramedics) brought in to the Denver trauma centers. Talk about holes being plugged? One bad guy got shot a total of eight times during a home invasion, and seven bullets got plugged and actually deflected causing only (relatively) minor flesh wounds. He was wearing a common Levi jacket. Go figure! Luckily for the homeowner, the last round hit right at the sternal notch,and that resulted in an immediate trip to a dirt bath…
And that’s also why it’s not “2 shots to the chest, assess” or “2 to the chest, one to the head”. It’s “keep shooting until the threat stops”. And why I like guns with a lot of capacity. 😉
“2 to the chest, assess” is basically the same as “keep shooting until the threat stops”. In a gunfight, assess is going to take fractions of a second.
How are you going to know that the threat has stopped if you haven’t assessed?
After 2 to the chest, assess includes:
Do I need to shoot this guy again?
Do I need to shoot his buddy too?
How many more bullets do I have in this gun?
Can I afford to keep shooting this guy with $1.25 Critical Defense bullets?
Or should I switch to my mag full of Blazers.
If I pistol whip him, just for good measure, will it break my tac light?
(default answers: Yes. Yes. 11. No. Yes. and Yes.)
Like I said… Fractions of a second.
🙂